The Batman

4 Mar

‘The Batman’: The Dark Knight gets darker

By Tom Meek Wednesday, March 2, 2022

“The Batman” is a dark, deeply emotional affair that’s got a lot going for it and a lot going on – perhaps too much. (It’s almost three hours long.) We could also call it version 3.5 of the cinematic dark knight, with the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher films in the 1990s and Christopher Nolan trilogy being 1.0 and 2.0 and Ben Affleck’s donning of the cowl in the “Justice League” films the 0.5 splitter. It may be 4.5 if we take into account the spoofy, goofy BAM! POW! fun of the Adam West television series.

What drives this reboot is a succession of grim murders of municipal higher-ups, beginning with the mayor and working its way over to the heads of the police and district attorney’s offices. Personally, if I was orchestrating such sinister deeds I would have saved the top cat (the mayor) for last – it just feels more operatic. The thing that links the macabre deaths are the signatures left at each crime scene: a riddle punctuated with a giant question mark, an encrypted cipher, a card addressed to “The Batman” and some spray painted (or blood painted) messaging about a web of lies or some such thing.

Given that Paul Dano plays The Riddler, you can probably guess who’s behind the acts that play out in sadistic fashion like a sin-atoned-for in David Fincher’s “Se7en” (1995) or a Jigsaw trap from one of the “Saw” films. The Riddler here just may be darker and more demonic than the spins on Joker performed by Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix: One clue leads to a thumb drive with a severed thumb attached to it, so those recovering it can unlock it via thumbprint, and it clearly takes a lot of work to be that twisted. But wait, this film’s about the bat, right? Well yes, and you get plenty of Robert Pattinson in the beefy Kevlar suit, which turns out to be a bit of a double-edged sword. We get to embed with him more, but the tease of enigma that has been the traditional draw dissipates. Director-writer Matt Reeves (“Let Me In,” “Cloverfield”), co-writer Peter Craig and Pattinson paint their Batman/Bruce Wayne as a deeply tortured soul, a monomaniacal tool of vengeance with no trace of mirth or joy and no bifurcation of personalities; what we drink in is all dour, sullen anger, underscored by the incarnation’s theme song, Nirvana’s broodingly depressive “Something in the Way.”

What carries the film are the sly intricacies of The Riddler’s misdeeds, the mysterious intent behind them and the stunning set designs that range from the crowded, rain-slicked streets of Gotham to the gaping Batcave and an Edward Hopper-styled diner lit in green neon. The cumulative effect is a strange, wonderful fusion of Walter Hill’s “Streets of Fire” (1984) and Ridley Scott’s future noir, “Blade Runner” (1982). The other aspect of “The Batman” that largely works is that our bat here is something of a master sleuth, a tech-age Sherlock Holmes, if you will. It’s a little off-putting to see him sniffing around a live crime scene CSI style, but part of the joy comes in looking beyond the obvious, going one level deeper and admiring the acumen of our hero. Caught up in the mix too is the updated version of Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz), though she simply goes by her birth name of Selina and works in a nightclub owned by Oswald Cobblepot, aka The Penguin, played beguilingly by Colin Farrell under gobs of makeup. He’s something of a brotherly incarnation of Robert De Niro’s portly Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull” (1980).

The rest of the impressive supporting cast includes a perfectly coiffed Andy Serkis as a dutiful Alfred who’s killer at decoding ciphers, John Turturro as the local crime boss all trails seem to lead to, Peter Sarsgaard as the sleazy DA and Jeffrey Wright, channeling his cagey investigative reporter from “The French Dispatch” (2021) as Lt. Gordon, the guy who fires up the bat signal and may be the only clean cop on the force. The new take on the Batmobile is something of a throwback to the muscle cars of the 1970s; it’s like someone bat-tatted a classic Dodge Charger and strapped on a jet engine turbo boost like one of those nitro-infused junkers in “The Road Warrior” (1981).

Pattinson and Kravitz look fetching together, and given their raw charisma you’d think the two would click together like Legos (there is that “Lego Batman Movie”), but the romantic undercurrent between them feels postured and unearned. Then again, this is a brooding, relentless lad who takes his mission as a higher cause – “I am vengeance” gets tossed around a lot. Batman’s most genuine connections are those with Gordon, who for reasons not on screen trusts him emphatically, and his lifelong loyal butler and caregiver Alfred, though that ultimately gets challenged as “the veil is pulled back and the lie’s exposed.” I grew up near Connecticut cities where corruption scandals were an annual “wait for it” event that didn’t disappoint, and of course we had infamous mayor Buddy Cianci just down the way in Providence. Gotham’s not much different: dirty cops with drug money washing political hands. What it does have is that dashing millionaire orphan who likes to dress up, break out the bat toys and take out the trash.

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Proposals for taking down trolley wire system then ‘partial-build’ bike lanes nudge forward

23 Feb

Bike Lane Games

By Tom Meek Friday, February 18, 2022

A sign taped to a municipal meeting notice warns that the city plans to “give away” Porter Square with quick-build bike lanes. Unlike with many websites, the URL on the flyer works only when https:// precedes it. (Photo: Marc Levy)

Transportation officials are moving toward removing overhead trolley wires that will allow an approach to building bike lanes that keeps more parking along Massachusetts Avenue in the northern parts of the city, representatives for the city and state said in two community meetings this week.

The MBTA held an information session virtually Tuesday on bus electrification and the North Cambridge depot redesign, drawing more than 150 attendees. Scott Hamwey, the MBTA’s director of bus modernization, said the state planned to de-electrify overhead catenary wires and switch to battery electric buses beginning in mid-March, removing the wires sometime in late 2023 or 2024. The North Cambridge depot would shut down for two years as it was turned into a bus-charging station; construction would start within the next year, Hamwey said. While just 3 percent of the fleet is electric now, the agency plans to make it fully electric by 2040.

Many in the audience argued that the current, wired buses were cleaner than the BEBs, which would be equipped with a small diesel engine cycling on and off to add warmth for riders on days cold enough that the buses’ electric heat is inadequate. The rebuilt depot would include a 5,000-gallon diesel tank on the north side of the site.

Only a small amount of the bus fleet use the overhead wires, which are deployed in only a small part of MBTA territory, and the system and buses that use it are aging and will require significant cost to upgrade and maintain, said Hamwey and senior director of vehicle engineering Bill Wolfgang.

Planning for Porter

The city showed “partial” bike-lane constructions options as part of a Wednesday presentation.

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The Worst Person in the World

11 Feb

Is it so terrible to decide what you want and act on it? (It can be.)

Norwegian director Joachim Trier rounds out his Oslo Trilogy with this engrossing tale about a young woman struggling to define herself in the world. Like the other two entries in the series, “Reprise” (2006) and “Oslo, August 31st” (2011), “The Worst Person in the World” unfolds in the same urbanscape and is an inward-focused, emotional journey. Trier’s bookend is meted into 12 neat chapters with titles such as “Cheating,” “Bobcat Wrecks Xmas” and “Oral Sex in the Age of #MeToo.” We settle in with Julie (Renate Reinsve, who pretty much is everything to the film’s success) as a med school student who switches to psychology, then decides she wants to be a photographer. She ends up working in a bookstore and, because of her passion for art and photography, meets Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie, who starred in the other trilogy chapters), a renowned graphic novelist (think “Fritz the Cat”) with a cult following. He’s a decade or so her senior, but they become lovers and move in together. It’s a cozy, coddled existence initially, but living in Aksel’s shadow tugs on Julie’s sense of self. When she meets a young barista named Eivind (Herbert Nordrum) who’s also in a relationship, there’s an undeniable, immediate spark between the two.

How the dynamics play out within and between two couples is nothing too dramatic – certainly nothing worthy of the harsh title. One gets diagnosed with terminal cancer, another becomes an Internet for blogged pontifications about blow jobs and a third, learning that she’s a scant 3 percent indigenous (Sámi) becomes a climate change zealot. Other than that, mostly what fills the screen is the pain of longing and the uncertainty of tomorrow. There is one jarring bit in which Julie consumes hallucinogens as daddy issues manifest themselves in a unique and shocking fashion: a hurled bloody tampon. The best scene, however, and a neat trick by Trier, has Julie jogging through the streets of Oslo en route to meet Eivind, and every person, car and bird is held motionless; cyclists in mid-crank are frozen as she weaves around them, seemingly unaware or uncaring of their paused state, and it’s here that we get to measure the moral fortitude of our heroine; if Julie truly was the “Worst Person in the World,” clearly she would have stopped and pilfered cash from the wallets of some of the more well-off Oslovians.

Trier and his trilogy writing partner, Eskil Vogt, navigate time and emotional transitions seamlessly, and how the film ends is a smart, subtle twist that brings Julie’s odyssey full circle. There’s no grand drama to it, but it does feel hauntingly apt. “The Worst Person in the World” was named this week to the Academy’s list of Best International Film nominees, a loaded lot that packs more punch than the Best Picture slate.

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Moonfall

8 Feb

‘Moonfall’: When you wish upon these stars, they’re B-listers you can rely on for a good ride

By Tom Meek

Friday, February 4, 2022

The title may sound like a Bond flick, but “Moonfall” is the latest disaster pic from Roland Emmerich (“2012,” “Godzilla,” “The Day After Tomorrow” and “Independence Day”) about, well, the moon crashing into the Earth. True to any disaster film formula, we embed with several diverse parties as the end of days approaches. First up, we have washed-up astronaut Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson, “Little Children”) and his former flight mate, Jocinda Fowl (Halle Berry, “Catwoman”), now head of NASA, who have to figure out why the moon is losing its orbit and heading toward Mother Earth. They’re both divorced and with kids, so the survival of humankind is extra imperative. With them as they launch off on an “Armageddon” (1998)/“Don’t Look Up” (2021)-like mission is a nerdy extrovert with IBS (a very Rickey Gervais-esque John Bradley of “Game of Thrones,” bringing the much-needed comic relief). Down on Earth, Harper’s ex-wife (Carolina Bartczak), new hubby (Michael Peña) and the divorced couple’s 18-year-old son, Sonny (Charlie Plummer), catch up with Fowl’s son (Zayn Maloney) and her nanny (Kelly Yu, who attended the Berklee College of Music).

That pretty much sets the table. The whole why the moon is falling is best left unsaid, though it does have something to do with other life forms and past moon missions – there’s a Deep Throat in the mix that conspiracy theorists should have a ball with. The fun (or not so) stuff are the tidal waves that pitch deep inland, and the intermittent disruption in the gravity field bringing chaos-inducing lifts that at least allow trapped parties to leap across a chasm. There are also some poorly behaved rednecks in a pickup truck looking out only for themselves. Much of “Moonfall” is pure cockamamie, but it moves and clicks with reason and purpose, and Wilson and Berry are hard to resist.

The funny thing about “Moonfall” is that it’s pretty much the antithesis to Adam McKay’s smug “Don’t Look Up,” in which the world has been alerted to our imminent demise and no one cares – or cares only for financial or status reasons. In Emmerich’s B-tier tear, there’s just instant mass hysteria and a stampede for the hills. It’s not as smart or daffy, nor does it have the star power of “Don’t Look Up,” yet feels more honest and real despite the steep grade of plausibility. Like Harper and Fowl pulling an old space shuttle from a museum for the mission, Emmerich’s taken what’s old and worn and made it fly again.

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Jackass Forever

6 Feb

‘Jackass Forever’: Still not beyond trying stunts that you should never try at home

By Tom Meek

Thursday, February 3, 2022

It’s been 22 years since “Jackass” stoked the derring-do in nerdy 13-year-olds routinely ignored by the in-crowd, disinterested in sports and studies and gulping down the rebellious irreverence of “Beavis and Butthead.” The arrival of the Spike Jonze-created series about outcasts registering a strange sense of accomplishment in Darwin Award-worthy escapades was liberating to that crowed, but if you break it down, “Jackass” stunts are essentially the teen challenges you hear about on TikTok: ghost-pepper eating, cinnamon snorting, condom asphyxiation and other unwise acts of inanity that get pulled far too late off the social media platform. Led by merry prankster Johnny Knoxville, the Tab Hunter of the crew, “Jackass” goes to great lengths to discourage replication, implying the stars are professionals and reiterating this should not be tried at home. I’m not exactly sure what “professional” means here, but they’re still standing after decades of blowjobs from whale sharks, toilet bowl bombs and being beaten unconscious by a heavyweight contender in a department store. In the latest – and last? – installment, called “Jackass Forever,” you see animal trainers and medical professionals on the edges of the set ready to rush in, and there are one or two stunts that lead to hospital visits.

“Forever” is billed as a “Dickhouse” production and lives up to the moniker gloriously. The opening scene of urban chaos, a riff on “Reptilicus” or “Godzilla,” is actually a giant green penis crashing through the city; later, old pal Steve-O, full frontal, has a queen bee attached to his scrotum to lure a swarm of drones; then there’s the squished penis pingpong paddle and a “cup” challenge in which a professional boxer and hockey player take aim at the testes – grown men will wince and look away. “Jackass Forever” is not one-note, however; there are also gross-out gags that involve animal semen and a cast member who drops a runny deuce in his costume. Industrial wedgies. One with a treadmill on at full speed. Scorpion botox. And you get some fun facts along the way: Did you know that swine males can produce more than 17 ounces of semen at one time? Knoxville getting shot out of a cannon seems pretty pedestrian by comparison.

Yes, these are all grown men in their 40s and 50s, and good for them; they pick up a paycheck and have a chuckle or two for losing a tooth or breaking a wrist. (The guy who comes close to being mauled by a bear because salmon was strapped to his gonads deserves hazard pay.) It’s all dumb yuks that could go terribly wrong but don’t, at least as presented. The one positive thing “Jackass,” does in a skewed way, is empower: Besides the matinee-handsome Knoxville, most of the crew does not possess physiques that would make the cover of a health mag, but in this world they are all equals – equally as foolish, equally as brave and equally as capable. When all is said and done, as the blood is mopped up and balls gripped in groaning agony amid group guffaws, there’s a genuine air of respect and a comradely bond. I’m not sure I’d ever hold them up as role models, but do they have generational crossover appeal anyway? MTV, where it all began, feels like an eight-track these days. In one online forum a film fan – though I’d call “Jackass” more of an experience than a film – gave 10 stars to “Jackass Forever” and said he wished he was 18 so he could see it. And there you have it: pricks and poop are ageless in their appeal.

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Being Peter Bogdanovich

22 Jan

A life in film, worthy of being a film

Last week with the passing of Peter Bogdanovich the movie world lost a filmmaker whose streak of instant classics in the 1970s rivaled that of fellow New Hollywood deities Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and William Friedkin. The lesser known Bogdanovich who claimed to have been obsessed with film from the day he was born would enjoy a meteoritical early career helming three back-to-back critical and commercial hits; “The Last Picture Show,” “What’s Up, Doc?” and “Paper Moon,” in his early thirties, but despite those cinematic successes, Bogdanovich’s personal life was peppered with tragedy, financial and career implosions, tabloid fodder romances and worse—his life, or parts of it, were not only like a movie, they were in movies.

The son of immigrants, Bogdanovich grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where his father Borislav, a painter, often took him to the matinee where he became intoxicated by Golden Age classics directed by Charlie Chaplin, John Ford, Howard Hawks and Orson Welles. In his early twenties he penned detailed monographs of his cinematic idols for the Museum of Modern Art where he also programmed and wrote pieces on film for “Esquire” and “The Saturday Evening Post.” After directing an off-Broadway revival of Clifford Odets’s drama “The Big Knife” at the age 20 (starring a young Carroll O’Connor) he drifted west with his wife Polly Platt to work for the upstart Roger Corman as a second unit director and writer. In 1968 Corman would produce Bogdanovich’s first feature “Targets,” a loose depiction of mass murderer Charles Whitman infamously known as the “Austin Tower Sniper” for killing nine people during a 90 minute shooting spree in 1966. The film, a piquant blend of character profile and Bogdanovich’s love of cinema and screen legends (the final scene takes place at a drive in and features Boris Karloff as an aging horror film actor) was a low budget curio that scored critical acclaim but didn’t garner much attention at the box office. That same year, under the moniker of Derek Thomas, Bogdanovich also made “Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women” for Corman, a B-level quickie about scantily clad women in outer space–if that sounds like a vampy spoof on “Barbarella,” know that the Jane Fonda sci-fi, sex-kitten fantasy was made in ’68 as well.

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Licorice Pizsa

26 Dec

‘Licorice Pizza’: Head over heels for Alana Haim in the shaggiest of ’70s Southern California tales

By Tom Meek Thursday, December 23, 2021

Alana Haim and Cooper Hoffman in ‘Licorice Pizza’.

Fans of Paul Thomas Anderson’s early, quirky works – “Boogie Nights” (1997) and “Magnolia” (1999) – will delight in his latest. That’s not to say that “There Will Be Blood” (2007), “Phantom Thread” (2017) and “Inherent Vice” (2014) are not insignificant films, because they are; it’s just there’s a dark, cheeky breeziness to those earlier efforts and a style and a tone that propels “Licorice Pizza” from the first frame. The opening scene homes in on 15-year-old Gary (Cooper Hoffman, son of frequent Anderson collaborator Phillip Seymour Hoffman’) loquaciously prattling away to a young woman named Alana (Alana Haim), who’s clearly older (in her 20s). It’s a long, well-choreographed tracking shot that takes us from the long paths of a verdant courtyard to the innards of a school’s gym, where Gary is to get his high school photo. Gary, we learn, is a child actor of some notoriety but on the cusp of aging out, an epiphany that doesn’t put a damper on so much as free up an abundance of other ambitious ideas, including dating Alana. “I met the girl I’m going to marry one day,” he tells a friend. Alana, surprisingly, agrees to a date at a local steakhouse (the infamous Tail o’ the Cock) and later chaperones Gary to a hit TV show reunion in New York City, where one of Gary’s fellow child stars swoops in on her.

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The Matrix Resurrections

23 Dec

This sequel levels up with a mix of nostalgia and action worth the ride

By Tom Meek Wednesday, December 22, 2021

In “The Matrix Resurrections” we catch up with Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) toiling as a head game designer being dogged to make a fourth release to his “Matrix” video game series. The series is wildly popular but Thomas, plagued by neuroses, seeing a shrink and said to have suicidal tendencies, is clearly a bit of an anxiety milkshake. It’s a pretty meta opener, as series creator Lana Wachowski had been peppered over the years by Warner Bros. to make a new “Matrix” installment. (The company Thomas works for, Deus Machina, is owned by Warner Bros. in the film – how’s that for tres meta?) She ultimately agreed, though sister and series co-creator Lilly Wachowski opted out due to stress from coming out, gender reassignment and the death of their parents.

The original “Matrix” (1999) broke ground in action filmmaking and intrigued with its plays on Eastern philosophies (though more simply we’re talking a war between humans and machines à la “The Terminator”). For fans who were only semi-warmed by “Reloaded” and let down by “Revolutions” in 2003, “Resurrections” may be just the remedy. It’s nostalgic – almost to the point of being schmaltzy in its overuse of clips from previous chapters – and has a heightened sense of romance with a few kick-ass action sequences well enough meted out to avoid overload. And yeah, there’s a shitload of philosophizing about red-pill-blue-pill and choice versus complacency, which to me has always tasted like a yada-yada MacGuffin for the highbrow lot.

The Thomas Anderson of “Resurrections” is an indentured servant just like the rest of humanity, “taking the blue pill” and relegated to a false contentment when they are really sleeping energy cells in a pod farm to power machines. But the great conceit in this rekindled Matrix future-verse is not so much the hero as a corporate wonk, but the affinity and thin tendrils of romance between Thomas and Tiffany/Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss, rocking the role again). When Thomas the coder meets Tiffany in a coffee shop in the bowels of his corporate office tower, she’s a soccer mom with kids and a straight-out-of L.L. Bean hubby with a type AA personality. There’s a flickering recognition on both sides, but none of that gets rekindled until Bugs (Jessica Henwick), a punked-out rebel hacker inspired by Anderson’s Matrix persona as Neo and “The One,” gets him to Morpheus. There he’s awoken with the infamous red pill (cue up Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit,” and what’s that tattooed on Bugs’ arm?) to learn he’s just another cog in the machine, and that things are a little more complicated these days, as machines are now warring among themselves. Rebel leader Morpheus is now played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II from the “Watchman” series. The digitized retooling of the Laurence Fishburne character works out seamlessly.

In construct, “Resurrections” is more a reawakening than reboot that will likely (or so must be Warner’s hope) guide a new generation back to a sweeping franchise that’s been dormant almost 20 years. The real sell here is the chemistry between Reeves and Moss, who had romantic spark and sexual tension in past chapters – both looking fashionable and sleek in long, black dusters – but here, with a touch of weariness and eyes edged with crows’ feet, there’s something much more deep and attainably genuine; they’re soulmates, always meant to be but unable to connect. The longing and closeness of realization is an intoxicating elixir. Those hoping for “bullet time,” as Anderson’s boss calls it when talking about what should go in the latest Deus Machina release, might be disappointed. There’s not a lot of signature slo-mo bullet dodging. Also missing is the relentless malevolence of Hugo Weaving, who’s not back stalking Neo as Agent Smith. What we do get is one protracted and thrilling chase sequence through a gantlet of city blocks as Neo and Trinity ride again on a Ducati. (Did I mention Moss’ Tiffany persona has a motorcycle shop?) The Matrix’s response? Use sleeping humans in the chambers above as zombie-style missiles, crashing through windows and plummeting at dodging pair. The eye-popping result eerily evokes “World War Z” (2013) and, even more disturbingly, 9/11.

Like the entries before, “Resurrections” isn’t so much about where you land – though there is a revelation that many likely had a bead on 18 years ago – but the journey. One great benefit is the potpourri of personalities that provide bumpers for Neo to carom off of in his quest for truth, namely Neil Patrick Harris as his analyst; Priyanka Chopra Jonas as the oracle Sati; and most humorously, Andrew Caldwell as Thomas’ boss at Deus Machina.

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Keke Hamsho and the Falconers: Chapter 1

21 Dec

Keke Hamsho and the Falconers is a serial about Keke Hamsho, an eighth grader at Rindge Avenue Upper School. Keke is also homeless.

Keke Hamsho was late for school because the tent had collapsed for the third time that night and they had to help their aunt and Ahmed put it back up. The winds from storm that had soaked the area kept knocking it down and the earth of the Alewife Reservation remained too wet and soft to secure the tent’s stakes. This time Ahmed used the odd ends of twine to tie the tent off to neighboring pines. As soon as it was up, Keke tore off down the bike path, through the Alewife T station, dashed between the bumper to bumper traffic on Fresh Pond Parkway and then sprinted down Rindge Ave, mud clinging to their purple Keds and bell bottom pants. After checking in at the front office they decided to duck into the accessibility bathroom to clean up before slipping in to Mr. Taulson’s history class. Just as Keke was about to push open the door, the hulking form of Jabari Harris popped out. Keke jumped back.

“Trying to get a peek, perv?” Jabari just stood there blocking Keke’s path. Everyone at Rindge Avenue Upper School knew Jabari Harris, the all everything to be, youth league football standout, basketball star and said to be a near lock to start at wideout on the high school team next year. He was also allegedly a rare eighth grade member of the Falcon Posse, the secret high school club that everyone wanted to be part of and fearful to be the target of. It was practically mandatory to follow them on TikTok and Instagram. A Falcon Posse post mentioning you either earned you friendly back pats in the hall or a week of cold shoulders.

“Sorry, in a rush,” Keke stammered.

“What are you anyway?” the larger student growled in his deep, other side of puberty, baritone.

“A human, same as you,” Keke said as they slipped pass and bolted the door. Quickly they wiped the mud from the sparkly Keds and pick fluffed their hair so that the purple and azure highlights of the blond crop shown with an aura-like effect.

At lunch Keke sat with Hazel and Cal, COVID masks under their chins pulling on their ears as they ate.

“Trade you a half PB and bacon for half your dog,” Hazel said to Keke, knowing how much her friend enjoyed the crunchy lunch treat her mom made.

“You don’t have to,” Keke said.

“C’mon, school dogs are the best, hit me up with that ketchup pack too.”

“Did you hear,” Cal asked, “someone stole Jenny’s favorite squishmallow from her backpack.”

“Jack Skellington?” Hazel asked.

“Yup.”

“That sucks, I wonder who the loser is who did it.”

“Hector,” Cal said, “said that Antoine told him he saw the new girl snooping through the bags after coming back from a bathroom break.”

“You know,” Hazel said, “two days ago, my Pockys were missing from my lunch bag, I thought I had just forgot to pack ‘em, but now…”

“And I had several bracelets I was working on,” Keke said, “go missing last week. I thought they fell out of my backpack when I was running to school.”

“Nadja, Nadia? The girl from Tanzania, right?” Hazel asked.

“Nyla and she’s from Ethiopia,” Keke corrected.

“Someone should tell Ms. Franklin,” Hazel said, “I’m going to buy Jenny a new Jack Skellington squishmallow for Christmas and send it to her on the down low, Secret Santa style.”

“At the front office this morning,” Keke said, “Vice Principal Santos was talking to a cop about someone taking the menorah from the ‘Multicultural Holiday Celebration’ exhibit and defiling it with swastikas in the teachers’ parking lot.”

“Haters be hating,” Hazel said.

“Asses be holing,” Cal laughed.“Prolly some bullshit Falconer Posse initiation ritual.”

“Bet it’s you’re boy Jabari,” Hazel said.

“That guy’s just the worst. A bully with a capital B.”

“He kinda hassled me this morning when I was trying to go to the bathroom.”

“When I see him I just walk the other way.”

“That was a mean shiner he gave you on Halloween. Hey Kek,” Hazel said, “have you heard the latest drop from Black Pink?”

“I wish, I dropped my iPod in a puddle during the last rain. I’m still trying to dry it out in a bag of rice, but I think it’s dead for good.” “Here, have a listen,” Hazel said putting earbuds into Keke’s ears and loading up the latest K-Pop hit on her iPhone.

Later that day after leaving their math session with Ms. Phillips, the learning specialist who helped them stay caught up with the class, Keke saw Nyla coming out of the accessibility bathroom and wondered what they were doing roaming the halls during a class period. The girl locked eyes with Keke but didn’t say anything until after she passed by. “Hey,” she called out.

Keke turned. “Hey yourself. Aren’t you going the wrong way? Don’t we have English?”

“I got pulled out to see Ms. Santos.”

“What for?” Keke asked.

“I don’t know,” Nyla said digging around in her pink, fake leather backpack. She produced three beaded bracelets, the same three beaded bracelets that Keke had lost, except now each one had a little rubber troll charm attached to it. “Want to buy one? Five dollars each.”

Keke was shocked. “I don’t have any money,” they stammered and then demanded, “Where did you get those?”

“I made ‘em.”

“You made them?”

“Yup.”

“That’s funny because those look just like the bracelets I make.”

“It’s just beads, anyone can make. If you don’t want one then I’ve got to go.”

Keke couldn’t wait to tell Cal and Hazel about the encounter, but before the last bell she got asked to stay after by Ms. Franklin. “Tomorrow before early release, go down and see Ms. Santos,” Ms. Franklin told Keke. “Also thank you for the lovely bracelet. Here’s a little something for you too,” Ms Franklin said and handed Keke an envelope. “We’re not supposed to do this, so let’s just keep it just between you and me, okay? And have a really happy holiday break.”

The next day at school Keke was still brimming to tell Cal and Hazel about the Nyla incident, but Nyla was sitting too close by and then Mr. Taulson came in. Later, in Ms. Franklin’s class both Nyla and Antoine were pulled out about half way through. As they packed up their belongings and exited, Keke and Cal and Hazel flashed each other wide eyed glances.

At class break Keke was finally able to share the story of the hallway encounter with Nyla.

“She’s so getting busted right now,” Cal said.

“I can’t believe she did that, that’s worse than lying to your face,” Hazel said.

“It was lying to her face,” Cal retorted.

“Their face,” Hazel corrected.

“Right, sorry.”

“No worries mate,” Keke said with a strained Australian accent as they gave Cal a friendly punch in the arm.

“Oh, before we take off,” Hazel said grabbing the hands of each of her friends, “I want you guys to come over for movie night during break. I’m thinking Home Alone 2 or Bad Santa if my mom will let us.”

“Only if your mom makes her awesome seven layer dip.”

“We’ll see. Kek, how can I get in touch with you? Do you guys have a cellphone?”

“No, not really. You can email me on my class PC, but we don’t have internet. I can sometimes get on the wifi from the cafe in the office park across the swamp.”

“Don’t worry, my friend,” Hazel said. “Problems have solutions and no one knows how to kick problem ass better than me.”

“That’s because you got a big one,” Cal chuckled.

“Dude, you just see Kardashian everywhere. You need a new hobby. Seriously.”

When Keke arrived at the principal’s office, the police officer they saw the day before was in with Principal Caldwell and Jabari Harris. Antoine and Nyla were sitting in chairs just outside the door awaiting their turn. Keke was about to check in with the receptionist when Vice Principal Santos beckoned from her office, “Keke, come on in.” As Keke took up the chair on the opposite side desk, Ms. Santos rolled her chair in tight and slid a small manila envelope over to Keke. “That’s a bus and subway pass for you, so wherever you are, and whatever the weather is, you can always get to us. There’s no charge, it’s part of a program the MBTA runs with public schools.”

“Thank you,” Keke said.

“How are things going otherwise?”

“Good.”

“I’m glad to hear that. No one’s bothering you or anything like that?”

“No.”

“That’s good. I want you to know you can always talk to us. People here care.”

“I know and thank you.”

“Well, have a wonderful break and I’ll see you back here next year,” the vice principal said with a wry smile.

“Thank you, you too Ms. Santos.”

That evening as Keke and their aunt ate cold soup and waited for Ahmed to come home, Keke opened their backpack to retrieve the envelope Ms. Franklin had given them. Inside there was also a small package, one that Keke had not seen before. It was plump and padded and overly sealed with tape. On the front in blue magic marker it said “For Keke” and nothing else. Keke opened the envelope from Ms. Franklin first.

Inside was a folded piece of paper and a gift card to Whole Foods. The computer printed text on the paper said, “Use this to get yourself a cherry pie for Christmas Day. I realize you probably don’t celebrate Christmas, however the sentiment remains. There should be enough for a turkey or a quiche to serve as an appetizer before you gorge on that cherry pie.”

Keke looked over at their aunt and smiled warmly.

To open the other package Keke needed Ahmed’s rusted jackknife to cut through the gobs of tape. Tucked inside a fold of bubble wrap was an iPhone and a pair of ear buds. Keke knew right away it was Hazel’s phone by the glitter covered pink case and purple PopSocket grip on it. On the face of the phone was a Post-it note with the number “7070″ on it. Keke tuned on the phone and punched in the code to unlock it. The phone said it had one new message from “Mom.” Out of curiosity Keke opened it, but all it said was “Call me.” Apprehensively Keke put in the earbuds and called.

“You got it!” her friend exclaimed.

“Yeah, but why?”

“Well now I can tell you when to come over and besides, my mom has three phones, plus you can now listen to K-Pop over the break.”

“Weird, but thank you I guess. Why did you not just give it to me at school?”

“You know me, weirdo to the max. Plus would you have taken it?”

“Good point.”

“So did you hear? It was Antoine who was stealing the shit…”

“Language!” Keke could hear a woman’s voice shout in the background.

“…and selling it to other kids. He probably sold your bracelets to Nyla who had no clue she was selling you, your stuff back to you.”

“She could have told me when I called her on it.”

“Who knows, she’s a quirky quacky duck.”

“I dunno, I kinda get where she’s coming from some. Her parents might not speak English and probably have a hard time finding work.”

“Don’t go all Debbie Downer on me. The day after Christmas, mark it down, save it, oh and can you do a sleep over? I’m now thinking Avatar or a Harry Potter movie fest, but…” Hazel now whispers, “…if we can close the door to the den, maybe we can put on Squid Game, cuz I know you love all things Korean.”Hazel giggled. “Because my mom knows we’re both into K-Pop she’s talking about making something called mandu soup.”

“It’s dumpling soup. I’ve never had it.”

“Me either.”

After Keke hung up they gave their aunt a big hug before crawling into their sleeping bag to listen to K-Pop. They knew in the morning they’d have to go to the hipster cafe in the industrial park to charge up the phone. It was a pretty good day and hopefully there would be more like it.

…to be continued

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The Lost Daughter

18 Dec

‘The Lost Daughter’: One gets away at a getaway in Maggie Gyllenhaal’s powerful directorial debut

Maggie Gyllenhaal, the actress best known for her turns in “Secretary” (2002) and “Adaptation,” (2002) gets behind the camera for her directorial debut with “The Lost Daughter,” an adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s novel about a woman struggling with loss and trying to find solace in the present. It’s a tight, intimate portrait of a person trying to move on who gets caught up in the dramas of others. Gyllenhaal gathers a fantastic cast and educes some award-worthy performances. Her lead could not be any better: Olivia Coleman, so good in “The Father” (2020) and an Oscar winner for her royal turn in “The Favourite” (2018), plays Leda Caruso, a comparative literary professor from Cambridge, Mass. (it’s not explicit but we can assume Harvard) on vacation at a Greek resort. Ensconced in a book, a quiet day of beach reading is interrupted by a raucous crowd of partiers from Queens. She won’t cede her spot on the beach to the group, which has choice Jersey Shore reaction to her stiff-upper-lip rigidity. Then the young child of one of the festive lot (Dakota Johnson, “Fifty Shades of Grey”) goes missing. There’s mass panic along the beach, which Leda – experiencing some anxiety – has left. Natch, she finds the young girl in the woods on the way to her cabana and returns her to her mother, Nina (Johnson). The group from Queens rethinks their opinion of their obstinate beach neighbor, and an uneasy bond between the women takes root. Nina looks to Leda for maternal advice, while the writer in Leda probes into Nina, her familial and romantic relationships, as well as her furtive ditherings. Leda has her own dubious doings, absconding with the child’s favorite doll and reacting with zero affect when the child breaks down crying for their security blanket.

“The Lost Daughter” is less about that present story between Nina and Leda than about Leda’s internal emotional journey. In flashbacks we see the young Leda (played by Jessie Buckley, so good in “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”) living an ideal life with a husband and two daughters, but is drawn by the allure of power and intellectual commonality by an established literary professor (Peter Sarsgaard, Gyllenhaal’s husband). The performances by Coleman and Buckley (who won the Boston Society of Film Critics for best supporting actress last week) are sublime and deeply felt. What’s more is that the transition between the two feels genuine and universal. The rest of the ensemble includes Ed Harris as a caretaker trying to break Leda’s icy facade, Paul Mescal as a resort attendant and Oliver Jackson-Cohen as one of the boisterous crew from Queens. It’s also one hell of a debut by Gyllenhaal, who’s going to have the cinema world hanging on her next directorial project. 

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